Woman testifies to using fake social security card for cable service

Published: Tuesday, September 17, 2013 at 06:24 PM.

Felony common law robbery statutes require a person act with “deceit and intention to defraud.” Misdemeanor larceny requires only intent to defraud.

Because Yanez-Mata has no criminal record, the most she can be sentenced to for the misdemeanor under state sentencing law is probation.

After being charged here in July 2012, Yanez-Mata initially faced the threat of deportation. On Dec. 13, the eve of a deportation hearing in Charlotte, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced it was dropping its case against her and that she wouldn’t face deportation.

GRAHAM — A woman who admitted using a fake Social Security card to obtain cable television service and was at the center of immigration protests last year stood trial this week on felony charges of identity theft and uttering.

On Tuesday, a jury found Lorena Yanez-Mata, 27, of Robin Lane, Graham guilty of misdemeanor uttering a forged document. Her trial began Monday and she will be sentenced Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. in Alamance County Superior Court.

Yanez-Mata was originally charged with obtaining property by false pretense after using a forged Social Security card at the Time Warner Cable office on Huffman Mill Road July 30, 2012, to set up an account with the company. That charge was dismissed before she was indicted on charges of identity theft and common law uttering a forged document earlier this year.

Superior Court Judge Wayne Abernathy dismissed the identity theft charge at the close of evidence Tuesday finding there wasn’t evidence showing that Yanez-Mata intended to use the identity of the person whose social security number she’d obtained. Yanez-Mata gave her true name and address and presented a photo ID when applying for cable service, Abernathy found.

Yanez-Mata testified in her defense Tuesday through the use of court interpreters.

She told jurors she arrived in America eight years ago with her brothers and bought the fake card for $80 in Wilson. She said she didn’t know the number on the card belonged to a real person. She admitted to using the card one other time, to obtain employment at a McDonald’s in Wilson.

Yanez-Mata said her daughter wanted Internet service last summer and the only place she knew to get it was through Time Warner Cable. On July 30, when Time Warner Cable employee Wendy Johnson asked for her social security number, Yanez-Mata presented the card.

“I gave the card because she asked for my Social Security number and I just wanted the service. I didn’t try to do anything wrong, just get the service,” she said.

Members of Burlington police, Time Warner Cable employees, a manager at the Social Security Administration’s Greensboro office and Adrian Hernandez — the Californian whose Social Security number was on Yanez-Mata’s card — also testified during the trial. During a break in the trial, Hernandez said he wasn’t sure how his Social Security number was obtained by the man who sold it to Yanez-Mata in 2004. He was only weeks away from graduating high school and had worked only two jobs. He wondered if the person just strung together random numbers.

During closing arguments, defense attorney Terry Hines of Winston-Salem told jurors to question whether Yanez-Mata intended to deceive or defraud Time-Warner Cable. He argued that she merely complied with a request to give a social security number.

“We don’t dispute that Ms. Yanez-Mata presented a card that was altered,” Hines said. “But did she commit the crime of uttering a forged document? Did she have the intent, plan or scheme for some criminal purpose?”

“Don’t overthink this case, ladies and gentlemen,” Morris said. “The only reason you have something you know is fake is to deceive people to get something you want. There is no other legitimate, reasonable, rational basis for what she did that day … She is as guilty of felony common law uttering as she is sitting in this courtroom.”

The jury began deliberating about an hour and a half and was initially hung up on the definition of “deceit.” Abernathy defined deceit as “acting with intent to cause another to believe that which is not true or misleads someone for an improper purpose.”

Felony common law robbery statutes require a person act with “deceit and intention to defraud.” Misdemeanor larceny requires only intent to defraud.

Because Yanez-Mata has no criminal record, the most she can be sentenced to for the misdemeanor under state sentencing law is probation.

After being charged here in July 2012, Yanez-Mata initially faced the threat of deportation. On Dec. 13, the eve of a deportation hearing in Charlotte, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced it was dropping its case against her and that she wouldn’t face deportation.